1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for communicating signals between semiconductor chips. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for communicating signals between semiconductor chips using round-robin-coupled micropipelines.
2. Related Art
Increases in the performance of semiconductor chips (such as microprocessors) have exceeded the ability of traditional communication channels (e.g., resistive wires) to achieve the off-chip communication bandwidths necessary to fully utilize on-chip computational resources. Consequently, computer system designers are beginning to design communication channels that enable significantly higher data transfer rates between semiconductor chips. For example, proximity communication techniques, which use capacitive signaling mechanisms, can achieve data transfer rates which are an order of magnitude higher than can be achieved by using traditional conductive communication techniques.
Unfortunately, data can often be transferred across these communication channels at a significantly higher rate than control signals can be generated to synchronize the data transfers. Consequently, the control circuitry can limit the performance of these communication channels.
Hence, what is needed is a system for communicating data between semiconductor chips without the above-described problem.